


Seriously, Nobody Likes Linron

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-22 22:30:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6096043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dalatrass Linron has a bad reputation in the salarian embassy. Tevos learns this the hard way when somebody has to make calls for the war summit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seriously, Nobody Likes Linron

**Author's Note:**

> Roommate was playing ME3 earlier, and it struck me as odd that the _asari_ councilor was the one who contacted the dalatrass, a _salarian._ So I wrote this to explain why.
> 
> References to "Ierian" mean Councilor Sparatus; I figure since they work with him, the other councilors (except Udina, because fuck Udina) would be on a first-name basis.

Tevos walked into the salarian embassy to find it was its usual hub of activity, with one slight difference: there was a hole in the ceiling.

Frowning, she walked over, flagging down an intern standing nearby. “Where’s Councilor Valern?” she asked, folding her arms. “I need to speak with him.”

The intern shrugged. “He and some of the others are going through our archives.”

Her frown grew. “What’s he doing in the Archives?”

The intern shook their head. “Not _the_ archives. _Our_ archives. In the ceiling.”

Her brows shot up as high as they went, and she took a moment to compose herself back to a more neutral expression. “Could you get him for me?”

“Of course, Councilor.” The intern glanced between the hole in the ceiling and the ground, then turned and kicked a desk, resulting in a sharp _clang_.

There was a pause, then a pale brown salarian clad mostly in white and beige popped down, hanging upside-down so she could stay in the ceiling while still being relatively close enough for a conversation. “Councilor Tevos,” Ambassador Esheel greeted. “Can I help you?”

Tevos nodded. “I need to speak with Councilor Valern, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. One moment.” Esheel pulled herself back up into the ceiling, and Tevos heard her call, “Valern! It’s for you!”

The ceiling creaked slightly, then Valern himself appeared, in the same upside-down position Esheel had been in. “Tevos,” he said coolly. “Do you need something?”

Tevos folded her arms. “Ierian just got off comms with Shepard and Primarch Victus. They say they want krogan support. Clan leader Urdnot Wrex will be at the summit.”

Valern blinked in that bored and vaguely condescending way he had, long and slow. “And?”

She sighed. “And, you’re going to need to let Dalatrass Linron know.”

Valern’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second, then he snorted and hauled himself back up into the ceiling. “No.”

She blinked. “What do you mean, ‘no’?” she asked, moving to stand under the hole so she could look up at him.

“I mean no, I’m not going to talk to Linron. I’d think that much would be obvious.” She had a brief glimpse of him rolling his eyes before he retreated further back into the darkness, to be replaced by Esheel with what appeared to be part of a filing cabinet.

Esheel flicked a membrane at her. “If you’re going to stand there, we’re going to need you to help,” she said. “The last person to organize this place did a horrible job. We can’t find _any_ of the information we need for the war.”

“Some idiot thought we wouldn’t need it, probably,” Valern said, reappearing with a box of his own. “Did you find the list of STG bases they don’t know we know about yet?”

“No, still looking.” Esheel unceremoniously shoved her box out of the hole, and Tevos only just barely caught it in a biotic field before it scattered its contents all over the room.

She set the box down on a desk, then frowned up at the two salarians. “I thought you two hated each other.”

“People have been saying that a lot lately,” Valern said dryly. “Wonder why?”

“Maybe it’s because you tried to blow my office up last week,” Esheel offered.

“No, that can’t be it. Must be because you tried to impale me last month.”

“I didn’t try to impale you. I was going for _stab_. There’s a difference.”

“Yes, stab implies you used a dagger. _It was a sword the length of my thigh_.”

Tevos cleared her throat, and the bickering politicians looked back down at her. “ _Anyway_ ,” she said, “Valern, why aren’t you going to talk to Linron?”

Valern let out a sharp bark of a laugh, dropping his box for her to catch. “Have you _met_ her?”

She almost dropped the box, then carefully set it on the floor. “I can’t say I have.”

“You’re in luck,” Esheel told her, moving away from the hole again.

Valern nodded in agreement. “Maelbin is single-handedly the most evil dalatrass Clan Linron has ever had. Where’s Aehe? She can tell you.”

There was a long-suffering sigh off to Tevos’s side, and she glanced over to see a reddish-orange salarian in a neat blue suit drifting up to her, datapad in hand. “She’s really not as bad as you all claim,” Ambassador Aehe complained. “Sir, ma’am, you’re both going to need to come down soon, Jondum Bau needs to report in and Aegohr’s dalatrass is scheduled to call soon.”

Without further prompting, Valern and Esheel hopped down, landing neatly and standing up straight to brush cobwebs and dust off their clothes and horns. “See, the problem with that statement,” Valern said, “is that she’s _your_ dalatrass. You’re morally obligated to say she’s all sunshine and rainbows and warm waters.”

Aehe rolled her eyes. “The dalatrass can be… difficult to deal with,” she told Tevos. “Very conservative, and stubborn. It hasn’t exactly made her popular with the other dalatrasses, but Clan Linron has too much political clout for them to do anything about it.”

“Essentially, take Ierian and make him a female salarian,” Valern said. “And bump up his hostility from ‘tired and cranky old man’ to ‘actively aggressive and quick to fight over the tiniest thing.’”

“So like Valern, only female, and a million times worse,” Esheel offered, sneering when Valern punched her in the shoulder.

Tevos groaned and rubbed at her temples. “I’m starting to think I should just call the dalatrass myself.”

“You said it, not us.”


End file.
